Business

TV & Interactive Creators Beware: Who owns the audience?

Producers, broadcasters and funders are necessarily grappling with the rights and revenues attached to opportunities made possible by digital technology. To date, the discussion has centered primarily around platforms for distribution.

The June 2010 CFTPA (CMPA) research study, “Towards a Framework for Digital Rights” does an excellent job of summarizing challenges and opportunities relative to digital distribution and exploitation. However, the report doesn’t address the capacity of digital technology to transform the role of the audience, or who established a relationship with the audience.  That relationship, once the exclusive domain of the broadcaster is now a rich source of content research and development, advance marketing, and testing, all potentially activities undertaken by producers.   The extent to which the public can be now be engaged through digital tools right from the start of a program concept opens up questions around the purpose and value of those pre-broadcast relationships and who “owns” them, before, during and after the broadcast.

The People Formerly Known As The Audience.

Prior to the advent of digital technology, the viewing audience “belonged” to the broadcaster.  How and when content was made available, and the promotional and sales messaging “pushed” in front of the audience were the levers used by broadcasters to drive revenue.

Mass adoption of the Internet, and particularly web 2.0 platforms, have enabled producers and audiences to engage in two-way conversations separate and apart from any broadcast component.  Almost daily, tools are emerging that enable producers to join discussions already taking place about genres or subject matter. Content creators can learn where target audiences are gathering on line, how they like to be engaged, what they care about and what they don’t. When appropriate, content creators can customize their “products” to suit audience demand.

These relationships can help shape creative and foster deep engagement between a program and its audience long before the broadcast release. This early engagement can subsequently influence and improve the commercial success of that release.

Terms of Engagement

The right of the producer to engage existing online audiences and/or to build new groups in a way that helps to shape the very content of a show or series and its success needs to be protected.

Let’s say a specialty network licenses a personal makeover series. During development and pre-production, the producer uses digital tools to attract contestants and to engage existing online groups in the creative process.  Contests and voting deepen the engagement and online profile.  The producer may want to explore posting video tips and pre-releasing scenes, in order to build a web presence that also increases awareness for the series, and which may also have value as an independent asset.

However, as the program launch nears, the broadcaster will also want to develop or use its existing digital avenues to market and promote the program.  The broadcaster may create a web page for the program as part of its larger branded website, as well as creating a Twitter feed and Facebook page even though the project may already have all of those applications in use.

Who Owns the Relationships?

Beyond some tactical issues that emerge with this scenario, it raises important issues about rights. A “database” of contacts developed by the producer during the development of the project may be tremendously valuable.  Documentaries based on a “hot” topic, comedies that have managed to create viral videos teasing series’ content, may boast sizable and loyal followings.  Who has the right to this “database?”  Does the broadcaster “lease” or “license” access to it just as they do with the finished program? How is the value of that pre-built audience established?  If social media profiles are established in the process of creating the program, who “owns” those profiles? What happens to the two-way engagement once the broadcast is completed?

While the broadcaster still needs to be in a position to promote a program to its audience, the age of two-way conversations has changed the very definition of “marketing” “content” and “audience.”   Building a relationship with an audience is no longer about getting their attention with a good promo. It’s as much about listening to what the audience has to say.  Creating engagement strategies require time and expertise that typically go far beyond the scope of the on-air promotions and marketing departments of the broadcaster.

However, if no new language or terms exist, then by default the activity remains with the marketing department even though the very nature of the activity has changed.

Delineating public engagement as an activity that has a much bigger footprint than that traditionally belonging to the marketing department would be an important first step to the future clarification of rights and responsibilities.

The Take Away

Producers are not yet fully exploiting the tools available to engage the audience early on in the production – and some may opt not to use them – ever.  However, the activity of interacting directly with the audience needs to be recognized because it’s already valuable and will only become more so.

Engagement of the audience should not default to the broadcaster simply because the value is not yet fully understood and therefore not fully recognized.
At this stage in the evolution of public engagement it is not possible to anticipate all the future implications.  However, recognizing at this moment in time that there are digital rights irrespective of distribution, and ensuring that they are non-exclusive to broadcasters will be an important first step for the future.

- Moyra Rodger and Rae Hull

Bing Banks on Your Buddies

This is a blog post about how a good idea can sometimes create a bad trend.

This month Bing announced it’s going to capitalize on the most powerful force of all – endorsements.  90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of people unknown to them.

We already know that if our friends like something, we’re much more likely to like it too. Currently in the US, and soon in Canada, when you search on Bing you will see search results that also show who of all the friends in your Facebook network “like” the business, organization, brand or product listed in your results. In other words, search results will include your friend’s recommendations.

Think about it.  Search “restaurant” for your city.  Does the sea of results help you make a decision? Not likely.  But under one result you see three friends have “liked” that establishment – and voila!  You’re much more likely to choose it.  Thank you Bing.

But the more I thought about this new development, the more I began to question how this actually might eventually erode the value of our friends’ opinions.

Here’s why.  In the race for brands to accumulate the most “Likes” possible for their Facebook Pages, a trend has emerged.  Contests, giveaways and other incentives to “Like” a brand’s Page are virtually ubiquitous now.  ”Win an iPad 2 – just for Liking us!”  Seeing as one click is all the effort that’s required, and the possible return so great – this tactic can be very effective. Except for one thing.  Now it appears your friends are endorsing a brand or product that they actually aren’t.  Over time, these powerful endorsements, lose their impact.

I’m not suggesting Bing’s latest inclusion of friend’s “Likes” in search results, is the beginning of the end of the value we place in our friends’ opinions.  But I am suggesting it may reveal the often paper thin value of a Facebook Like… eventually resulting in total disregard of what started as a great idea.

Thoughts?

Tags: bing, facebook, likes, search engine

Habitat for Humanity Workshop

Magnify Digital had the pleasure of presenting a workshop today at Habitat for Humanity’s national AGM. In a nutshell, the topic of our workshop was how to create and implement an effective online strategy. True to our proprietary ALERT™ system, we stressed the importance of doing a thorough assessment of current online properties and efforts, and then applying those findings to a strategy. Once a strategy is being implemented, tracking successes and weaknesses, as well as monitoring online conversations becomes critical. We recommend monitoring all elements of an online presence, not just social media.

The gist of each stage to having an effective online strategy are:

Assess:

To understand what’s working and what needs attention, conduct an assessment of…

• one’s own website (functionality, usability, mobile compatibility, how it’s serving one’s objective) Refer to Google Analytics data if it’s installed on your website. Have questions? We can help.
• current social media profiles (consistency in branding? messaging? voice?, engagement level, frequency of content)
• competitive environment (who else is after the audience, how and what are they doing)
• competitors’ websites and social networking efforts
• industry best practices
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – This encompasses SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). For SEO, look at how your brand and keywords related to your brand and/or service are showing up in search engines – the higher, the better. For PPC, look at how much you’re spending vs. how much you’re getting in return. If the PPC is meant to increase sales at the local ReStore – is this being achieved? Is there a noticeable increase?

(there are some tools listed below that can help support assessments)

Locate:

First define your audience, then find them online. The more specifically you can define them, the more chance you’ll have in finding them. In which social networks are they gathering? What can you learn about them based on their profiles, online engagement, and preferences?

Examples of where to look:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Quora
• Foursquare
• Gowalla
• Blogs / Blogosphere

Engage:

This step and the previous (Locate & Engage) are where the strategy is formed. By locating your audience, you now know which social networks you should be on. If your audience is spread across many networks, you will want to design a plan that paces out when you get involved in each network. We recommend breaking the strategy into phases, to match resources and available time. Breaking your plan into phases also gives you time to familiarize yourself with one network, and to establish good habits for healthy, active profiles.

In the workshop we spoke a lot about the importance of having a clear objective. Without this, no online strategy can be successful. You need to be clear what you’re after. Why are you online at all? “Because everyone is” is not good enough.

Once you determine a goal, you can measure it. All actions online need to be tracked and measured to determine effectiveness. This brings us to our last two steps…

Respond & Track:

Once you’ve located your audience and have begun listening to them, you can respond. There are many ways to monitor online talk and activities. Google Analytics will help you track the successes and weaknesses of your website. It will also help you understand how to better serve your audience.

Monitoring competition and online conversations can be done in a multitude of ways. Some of the tools we mentioned in the workshop included Hootsuite and Google Alerts. But we also encouraged you to manually check your website(s) a few times a month for errors, broken links, and other issues.

So that’s the recap. It took us close to 2 hours to make all those points, and it still felt like there was a lot to say. We had some great questions – which stimulated some even better conversations. In the workshop, we promised to provide a few handy tools on our blog.. so without further ado…

Broken Link Checker: http://www.it-india.com/check-broken-links/

Mobile Phone Emulator: http://www.mobilephoneemulator.com/

Page Rank Checker: http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

A tip about Google Grants came up. Google will donate significant Adwords credit to non-profit organizations (pending approval). Here is more information on that: http://www.google.com/grants/

Good luck to all the fine folk at Habitat for Humanity! We welcome any further questions or comments you may have.

Best,
Erin Garrity

The Internet is Dead & Social Media is Dying

During the last two weeks, the biggest interactive (technology & social media) conference of the year has been trending all over the marketing news. SXSW, held every year in Austin, TX, began as the birthplace for many startup companies in the tech and mobile scene. With the advances in technology and mobile, it now attracts many of North America’s largest companies from American Eagle to CNN and even Fox Sports from Australia. We weren’t able to attend this year’s conference, but we followed along with all the articles and tweets to find that the biggest take away from it is:

Tags: Business, customer service, Gary Vaynerchuk, marketing, Social Media

Mind the Gap-10 Tips for Coordinating Service Providers

Last week, the Globe & Mail published an interview with Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm. In the article, Mr. Edelman is quoted as  saying, “That which is advertising, that which is digital, that which is PR is all converging.”

The need for collaboration between disciplines is a favourite topic of mine. It seems obvious that bridges are needed to span the divide between web design, SEO, digital strategy, PR and advertising.  However, we’re not there yet.  Many businesses still rely on multiple suppliers to manage their communications plan and web presence.  That means disparate companies with different skill sets, philosophies and agendas are often paddling the same boat.

Here are 10 few tips to help businesses get their teams rowing in the same direction.

1. Convene A Group Meeting.  Get the key players from each of your external suppliers and internal communications department at the table for a group meeting. If it’s not possible for everyone to be together, use Skype or video conferencing so everyone can see each another.  It’s less likely for suppliers to feel threatened or  to create a “bad other” scenarios when they can see and get to know your other vendors. That may mean your ad agency, PR firm, web design team, SEO, PPC, copy writer and marketing manager being in the room.  Keep the atmosphere upbeat and set a deliberate tone of collaboration. Often these firms work in isolation.  If that’s been the case, use the meeting to launch a new approach.

2. Establish clear, realistic, and measurable goals for the overall online and mobile strategy. Encourage the input of everyone at the table and before the goals are solidified, ensure you have buy in from each supplier.  If there is a vendor that doesn’t get the plan or is interested in starting a turf war, turf them.  Noone’s got time for a team that can’t play nicely with others or lose the “but that’s not the way it used to be done” attitude.

3.  Establish clear, realistic, and measurable goals for each component of the online and mobile strategy. Examine each objective to ensure it supports the overall plan.

4. Clarify the roles and deliverables for each supplier (internal and external). Map them out in a rough org chart like this one.  Examine the overlaps / potential gaps between roles.

5.  Appoint a Quarterback. Identify a project lead (may be internal or external).  The individual must be a “doer,” respected by each of the players, someone with strong project management and superlative communication skills.  It should go without saying the lead must be a person you trust, who will give you the straight goods.

6. Develop Communication Protocols. Create a communications distribution list.  Figure out what info needs to be shared with the group (e.g. weekly/monthly Google Analytics analysis) and what requires limited sharing (e.g. billing is likely to be a private matter between supplier and client).  Copy everyone on the email and phone list.

7. Set up Metrics. Establish how each element will be measured and who will collect, analyze and report on the data.

8. Hold Regular Meetings. Set up regular meetings (weekly or monthly) to review findings and adjust course.  Group calls are fine, but meet in person once a quarter, if possible.

9. Refine the team. Add and subtract suppliers until you have the right mix. The whole should be greater than the sum of the parts.

10. Celebrate the successes! All suppliers like to be told when they are doing a great job.  All the better if the positive outcomes are the result of your suppliers working together.  Reward the collaboration and build on each success.

One day, it is likely there will be fewer specialists at the table.  PR teams may also have proficiency in social media.  Ad firms may be expert in PPC ads, tracking and analyzing metrics.  Web design firms may also offer mobile app design.  However, even then, it will be important to create clear roles, meaningful objectives, and measurable results.

Have fun out there.

Best,

Moyra

Tags: collaboration, goals, metrics, skype, strategy